I recently watched a video of this warehouse, it is an impressive use of robotics and algorithms.

The 'bots on the grid have only 5mm between them as they pass, so I am guessing there was a small failure of either the track or the drive mechanism on one of the bots that caused the mishap.

I assume it was the same Tom Scott one I watched:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZ_8cqfBlE

It was fascinating - didn't expect to see it in the news so soon afterward!

Shit happens, it's how you manage the shit that couns. It looks to me like they're managing this correctly. I wouldn't hold this against their reputation too much.

Yes, it does. But a collision of robots resulting in a fire?

That kind of thing is entirely preventable with simple things like fuses and current/temperature monitoring of motors & batteries.

Activation of the sprinkler system is an unfortunate last-resort measure to take. Presumably a large number of droids & groceries are now damaged and need disposing of.

Very sad that this happened (again) to Ocado.. Another win for Bezos' Bozos..

A collision of three robots. Two I can understand, but three ?

And how exactly did they catch fire ? Were they carrying flammable cargo, or did their batteries overload and if so, how is it that they have batteries that can do that ? Shouldn't there be some temperature monitoring ?

So many questions . . .

Once goes off the rails due to a problem (broken wheel or track?) and the 2 others slam into it because they couldn't detect the other robot being in their way?

If they're running on LiPo or Li-ion battery packs a hit in the wrong spot can internally short a cell. It's game over really fast after that. --> The usual result.

I agree. If this had been a non-automated warehouse, a headline like "fire caused by three fork-lift drivers not looking where they were going" probably wouldn't even make the news.

I worked for a large food logistics company for a while. All their fork-lifts were battery powered, which meant that they had to be driven to a charging dock regularly. It wasn't an uncommon occurrence for a driver to slam into the charging station, wrecking the hardware and some of the dock's batteries, or even to try driving off while it was still hooked up. Either event would make the entire building shudder, and I can't think how fires weren't a more regular occurrence there.

I used to work for a company that sold industrial terminals. We regularly had them back for repair for abuse - mainly the butchers on the meat production lines trying to operating the terminals with the point of their knives...

But one came back after a forklift driver tried to "operate" the terminal with the prongs of the forklift. (He was careless and drove straight into the terminal, pushing the LCD display out the back of the stainless steel terminal cabinet.

Shit has a cause.

Finding that is sometimes tricky.

Just fine for any length of time without issue then I'd put good money on it being caused by poor maintenance.

Think a nut on two of them where the wheels are being loose enough to contact, knocking one of them enough to hit another then topple over.

Either that or something started to escape one of the baskets removing clearance.

Any which way, it wasn't catastrophic and seems to have been handled well.

No. the robots were impacted - the orders were affected (unless of course the groceries got squashed when the robots collided, whereupon they might be legitimately considered to have been impacted ).

I got so fed up with the universal use of "impact" recently that I spent half an hour with a thesaurus. In that short time I found more than 60 context-specific and informative words indicating ways things and events can affect other things and events. Impact conveys nothing more than "something or other resulted from this". Its universal use is the recourse of sloppy thinkers who aren't interested in, or can't be bothered to find out about, what actually happened.

Your post has been an eyeopener... You've no idea how much that's impacted on my understanding...

But why would you be creative in the use of language? It seems nowadays people that put pride in their use of language get told off for "showing off" or "making it more complicated than it needs to be". And thus we get stuck with management buzzword bingo words like "impacted"

Right Reverend Host: "I'm afraid you've got a bad CFC, Mr Jones!";

The Curate: "Oh no, my Lord, I assure you! the vast majority of the CFC is in good condition"

"The grid"

*Tron Legacy soundtrack kicks in*

Yeah, sorry about that.

Steven R

Could have been a lot worse - they've got form around those parts...

https://thames.me.uk/explosion1864.htm

Since this is at least the second in a few short years, I'm wondering if there is either something wrong with the physical design or their processes - maybe they hesitate to hit the sprinklers too long?

Since they only have 5 of these centres (quick google could be wrong) 40% of them catching fire seems a bit worrying.

The collision was due to a loose antenna (the ones on top of the bots shown in the photo), which stuck out sideways and became lodged in a second passing bot. This somehow lead to batteries overheating and a rather large fire, perhaps due to the collision with the third bot. AC because...

Sounds like a lack of maintenance problem. Or at least one of those problems that someone went "Ehh, that probably can't hurt, we'll fix it later"

Rumour has it that Ocado now trialling a new range of products in the Smoky BBQ robot range. This is like standard BBQ relish, but with a hint of burned rubber, plastics and lithium.

Seriously though, it seems that improvements implemented since the first fire have worked well to contain the problem. Good to see it was quickly contained.

I guess its not just 1% that had the fire damage that needs replacement, I'd expect that there would be a lot of water and smoke in other places that would need to be removed / products replaced etc.

Will be interesting to see how long this takes to resolve and get the facility fully back on-line again.

Why is a new(ish) facility using chlorofluorocarbons?

My coat? Its the one with the chemistry textbook in the pocket!

Unconfirmed reports are now claiming that the fire was started after the robots converged on the potato aisle, with the aim of converting the spuds into inedible instant mash.

One must wonder at the quality of engineering going on in the design and construction of these bots. "Does not cause a fire resulting in the callout of 20 fire engines when they collide" should be one of ther more basic design requirements.

That's not a mistake by the way : what is now being minimised as just a minor smoulder saw 20 fire engines rushed to the scene from across South London. Also, "A fault in a battery charging unit caused a robot to catch light at Ocado's Andover distribution centre in 2019.The site, which processed 30,000 orders a week at the time, burned for four days and was completely destroyed".